Free
by PhoenixSong
Summary: A woman faces her horrible past in Communist China and teachers her daughter, Cho Chang, why she must appreciate herself, her hopes, and learn how to be free.
1. Soochoow Accent

I was born in the year of the Dragon. Unlucky year to be dragon, my mother would tell me.  
"But Ma," I would say, "that's not real astrology, that's Chinese astrology. We're in Britain--see, look my sign is a Cancer, you see the crab? Up in the stars...no, not suicide maiden. That is the crab. These are English stars."  
And my mother would go, "Hnnh, you think I do not know the heavens, don't believe your own mother."  
That was the way my mother was. And when I showed her my wand, brand new from Diagon Alley, my English spellbooks, the British things I would be taught at Hogwarts, the real magic, my mother would say, "Real magic! Wah! So much more--our ancestors are rolling in their graves. My age you be married, making mother in law happy, doing Chinese magic!"  
Mother in law! Honestly, I was eleven. When I left for Hogwarts my mother warned me many times about being good so bad ghosts wouldn't get me. I was always told about ghosts as a child. My mother was not cruel, she did not want to scare me. That was what Chinese people did. We had fought so many, so many years. About real magic, about proper manners, about cutting my hair, or listening to the WWN. Me and my mother fought, until I entered Hogwarts, my first year. And when I came home we did not fight anymore. Here is the story of that year; of my mother's past, of my future. The story of my mother, now as clear as the coral beads that fall into a clean, shining pond. The story of me, and my mother, my namesake, Cho Chang.  
Ai, Goddess of Mercy, don't have my daughter flattened by this train, Hogwarts Express. Bah--in China we use rickshaw, only no one to pull it--it went all on its own. Only meinlul, Muggles, use people as rickshaw pullers. But this train! Luling wrote yesterday told me all about a train crash, in America. Fifty people die. So senseless--yes, Luling said it was a meinlul train, but still, can't be good luck. Train crash in America, who says train can't crash in England. I try to tell this to my daughter, say, be careful, don't hurt, be good or you will be dead, like those American meinlul's--a ghost. But my daughter frowned and said I spoke bad English. Maybe so, but I had best Chinese. Peking, nice and wealthy from my fathers side, Soochow on mother's side. Soochow is best accent; not many people speak it. Even Luling says I speak best Chinese, and she came from Shanghai. I tried to tell my daughter this so many times. How even though I don't say it perfect, my heart will tell her this. But she laughs and says, "You're British, you can't be a silly old Chinese witch. People will think you bind your feet!"  
Bah--bind my feet? No, only meinlul's do that. So painful. I try to tell my daughter we have magic, Shrinking spells for large feet, no pain. But my daughter doesn't listen. She isn't listening to me now, talking to her other English friends. Wah--not one of them Chinese! That one over there looks Japanese even. And that boy, maybe one year older, look like snakes coming out of his head, not lucky at all.  
"The trains leaving any minute Ma. See you later!" And my daughter, she waves to me out that red train, and slowly it goes away. She doesn't hug me, she doesn't say "I miss you already." She is too full of pumpkin juice and this English excitement to hear me say, "I love you," in my perfect Chinese, Soochow accented voice.  



	2. How Do You Say Ravenclaw in Chinese?

"Was that your...mom? Magda says as the Hogwarts Express begins to go faster, whirring through London, and out into the countryside.  
"Yeah, that's my mom," I answer sullenly. It' s cloudy out. I always hated cloudy, indecisive, weather.  
"Is she English?"  
I get that a lot. "  
Yeah, she lived here all her life, and her mom before that, and before that. She speaks perfect English, she' s not very talkative though."  
It isn' t really a lie.  
"Oh."   
Which is just what I need, a potential new friend to think I' m weird. I sigh-even when she' s not hovering over me, ma ruins everything.  
"What house do you think you' ll be in?" Magda asks. She looks uncomfortable.  
"I don' t know. I hope I' ll get in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw."  
" Hufflepuff?"  
" Yeah, everyone there' s really nice, I heard."  
Magda rolls her eyes. " Who told you that?"  
"Some third year."  
" Probably a Hufflepuff," Magda says. I can already tell we' re a lot alike, favoring short phrases to long drawn out ones.  
I force a giggle, "He was really handsome though."  
"Let me set you right" Magda leans to me, as if telling me a secret. Her eyes are brown, matter of fact, the sort of person who never thought ghosts hid under her bed.   
"Hufflepuffs are idiots. Not too nice to say, but it' s true. Slytherins, you know them, they' re just horrible so forget them. Gryffindors can be nice, yeah, but they' re real show offs. Everyone says last year when they lost the House Cup to Slytherin they were sulking for weeks. Ravenclaws where you' d be best, I can tell."  
Ravenclaw...it really doesn' t sound too bad. The sky begins to clear, the sun is shining and I' m thinking, Ravenclaw. No, not bad at all.  



	3. A Perfect Western Christmas

What a bad, bad Christmas! Cho, she came home with wands, and silly western ideas in her head. She didn't care anything about me.  
Wrote to her, three times, even sent it through owl post, like she likes it. She writes back? Wah! Of course not, she too big for her own mother, perhaps?   
Maybe I should write Luling. Her daughter is obedient, Luling says so. Going to school, getting good grades. Very pretty, Luling says. But how could I face Luling and say,   
"Ah, old friend, you were right all along. Move to San Francisco is best, yes. Much more obedient children are in America."   
Luling would laugh, say I was just foolish old mother, should have listened all along. No, I will not give Luling that pleasure.  
Instead I dealt with Cho. Even made her English Chrismas-turkey for dinner, lots of British foods. I gave her new robes, a nice scarf for keeping warm. Very good presents, got the wool at Harrod' s, a meinlul shop, 50% off, very cheap and nice color, too. Good and soft, very fine quality. You see, I want the very best for my daughter.  
I wrote to Luling telling her of my good luck. But did Cho like my presents? No, instead she throw them, under the real, British Christmas tree like they were dirt, after all my work. Very nice color--I looked everywhere for them, pretty jade, very rare color, looks nice against Cho' s skin.   
You see the ways a daughter can hurt her mother, ways she cannot even imagine? I wonder often, if Luling's daughter hurts her the same. Doesn't Cho realize all my love for her. You know, when I was a girl people didn't tell you they loved you, not even your mother. When I was a girl things were different, people were treated bad, women especially.   
And still she cannot see my sacrifice, she cannot see the pain in my eyes when she says,   
"Oh mother, you're in England, not dumb old China."  
And oh, I get so angry! I crumple my fists but then I remember. Cho and me, we are the same. I see her eyes, her hair, her heart, and they are my own. She is all my good intentions, everything I have hoped for. Wah, and then let me ask you....how can I be angry at myself?  
And in a couple days, it seem, she just pack up, go back to her school, not say goodbye, mother. I come back home, you know what? She left that scarf, the jade one, the one I looked so hard for the color. That scarf, I found under my real, English Christmas tree.  



	4. Unlucky Colors

I only realize, after I am at Hogwarts that I left my scarf at home. Ma will be angry, writing me letters about how l'll die without that scarf, how I'll catch pneumonia, just like that girl she read about in the newspaper.   
Sure enough, I get her letter the next week. I don't open it at breakfast, but wait until that night to read it in the common room. I don't want any of my friends knowing that I have a pyscho for a mother.  
Cho-ah,  
How are you? I had a little head cold, nothing serious. Meinlul doctor said I was imagining...hnnh, I don't imagine things. Gave me little white pills to take, said called Tynel. I flushed them down the toilet--I only trust Chinese medicine, went to herb seller next day and wah--look, my head cold went, now it's someone else's bad luck.  
I wrote LuLing other day. She says her daughter is going to special wizard school in San Francisco, just for Chinese witches: no boys to make your mind wander. Wah, don't say that you don't like. When I was you're age, me and all my friends what you call boy insane. It's true.  
You left your scarf during Christmas time. You'll catch cold and there's no herb seller in Scotland that can help you then. You'll sneeze yourself inside out and then that would be bad, people wouldn't know difference between you and a bad ghost. You be careful, right?  
I was thinking other day. You said your home has symbol of raven. Not very good luck. All your dreams will fly away. Be careful. Ravenclaw is a very unlucky house. Snake is bad house too, good you aren't in it, because then you can never show face, you'll always be slithering around. Very, very, bad luck. Better to be in the lion or badger house. Lion house has lucky colors: red and gold, imperial colors. But lion house, you say, keeps losing to snake house. To be in a losing house, lots of shame. Your colors, wah, blue and purple. Little boy colors. Better than the badger house, yellow-like a Buddhist monk.   
Need to go now, am knitting you new surprise for when you come home for springtime. Found very pretty color yarn, cheap too.  
-Your Mother  
Really! I had to bite my lip from crying out in rage."Very unlucky house." She sounds like an ancient soothsayer. I take out a quill, feeling annoyance in my stomach.   
Ma,   
You're being so silly. Why'd you go to a Muggle doctor? Wizard remedies work much better. And it's Tylonel. You're being dumb about the lucky colors too. Would you stop annoying me? I don't care about Luling's stupid daughter, stop comparing me to her. You don't know anything about me. You're still lost in China. Why are you so weird? Why can't you be a normal mother?  
Do you want to know something else? That scarf you gave me was ugly!  
I give the letter to my owl, Wen, and climb up to my dormitory, falling instantly asleep so I can't let the guilt settle into my bones.  



	5. Worry Free

Cho-Ah,  
Wah! When I read your letter I was so mad. You can be so silly Cho-ah. I told myself, Cho is just being a silly little girl, so I wrote to LuLuing about you. I didn't want to, LuLing is very proud, don't like asking her for advice. But I did, and she says, tell Cho everything, don't hide any secrets. It is almost Chinese New Year, when you pay all your debts. You owe this debt to your daughter.  
I thought all about what Luling said, she was right. She usually isn't but this time, yes, Luling is right.   
So I will tell you everything and then you can't call me dumb or stupid because you'll finally understand. You didn't think I had secrets? What did you think? There is a lot you don't know about me, a lot I didn't want to tell you until you were big, grown up and married.   
Luling, you never met her did you? She very tricky, born in the year of the snake. I was an ox, we don't get along. Snakes are very bad-vain, tricky people. So you see why I don't like the snake house? I was so glad when you weren't in it! But Luling and I, we go through the same things, same hardships. Maybe it was fate, I don't know.   
But when you go through the things we did together how can you not be friends?  
Yes, I was born in the year of the ox. I don't know what year that was in China, calendar is different there. I remember I was born in the year when the Communists took the gold from the neighbors. It was the year of the great heat wave; ai-ya! What heat, I can even remember, and I was baby then. But what year it was, which English year, I do not know.  
Maybe nineteen sixty five, maybe sixty seven. You see how time runs by? Maybe I was born earlier, and just pretending I was young. But I know this, I was born in the year of the ox.  
The communists had been in power, yes. They didn't like my father, my mother and his concubines. What, you didn't know this, your grandfather had four wives? Yes, four wives, but my mother was the true wife, First Wife. The rest were just low class concubines. So you see, my blood is still good, not the daughter of a pretty ornament, but a real lady.  
Now, in England, everything is magic or not magic. Big differences-meinlul's shop here, wizards shop there. In China it is different. In China wizards and meinlul's blend together-shop at same places, eat the same, talk the same. Very much the same in customs except we wizards had wands up our sleeves. Sometimes you'd hear loud bangs on streets where an angry wizard lost his temper at a merchant trying to sell him cheap products, or asking too much money.  
See how things are there? We don't have this Ministry of Magic covering things up. In China if the meinlul saw something magic, like dragons, or wands, we just say, "Wah, he was smoking too much opium" Lots of things blamed on opium, not just by wizards. Maybe it's easier that way.  
My father, your grandfather, he was a wizard, but I only saw him use his wand once, to shrink my feet when I was a child. We were rich, lived in Soochow, beautiful voices in Soochow, and very good noodles too. Before the war, my father said, everything very modern, lots of American styled houses, Italian cars, British pastries. Everyone was foreigner crazy. After the Japanese invaded, and after that Chairman Mao and his communists, the house fell into disrepair. I don't know how we kept our wealth so long; maybe because in the war my father did business with communists, sold them steel, very cheap. See how clever my father was?  
My mother, I do not remember. She died the day I was born. But I do remember she was very beautiful. There was a portrait of her in the living room-so pretty, with hair darker than even mine, can you imagine, and small lips, big eyes. My father was very good to her memory. He did not let second wife become real wife. She remained second wife. He took more concubines on after that, but none, not one, was called first wife, real wife. That was my mothers. You think it's bad to have lots of wives? In China not so. If you're rich enough you can have hundreds of wives. It is like, how some people have lots of cars. Sounds bad, and sometimes it was. But my father was always very good to his wives, that's what I think. Or maybe I'm just remembering what I want to. After all, why have a bad memory when you can make up a good one. If you say a lie to yourself just enough times you begin to believe it.  
The communists lied a lot, and people believed it. Did you know, Chairman Mao, he was a wizard? No, I'm not joking. How else do you think he won so many people's attention, not by his face, wah! I liked Mao, at least at first. Not a very smart man; very bad at the end. He made mistakes; my father must've hated him. But I liked him. He gave women rights, he gave the poor money. No matter if he took it from my father. What did my father need the money for, dowry money for wives, when there were people starving in the streets.  
I was raised by my wet nurse. I called her Amah. I can't remember her real name. Very nice lady, my Amah. Spoiled me though, very badly. Maybe that was wrong.  
And there was my childhood. Yes, I said everything...except...except. Oh! Should have said this before, you see, back then my name, it wasn't Cho Chang. See then, it was, Chou Ying-Gai, worry free.   



	6. Meinlul Misery

Then when I was fourteen everything changed.   
The Cultural Revolution began, you know the cultural revolution? When Mao terrorized the upper class, white collar workers were tormented, eight year old students had complete control over their teachers? That was the Cultural Revolution.  
A group of children, maybe a little older than me at the time, they came to our house. They took everything in the name of Mao and when they were done they killed two of my father's wives, and burned the house down.   
Then it was just me, my father, and fourth wife, out in the streets.  
Back then you could not get welfare. Too many people were suffering. You did not have insurance. If bad things happened, wah, what bad luck, too bad for you.  
I remember those times, they were bad. We had no money, we had no way to get money. The only thing they had left was me.  
Bah! You hear Chinese people saying things like girl babies are useless, no one wants a girl. That is a lie, girl babies are very good to have, if you have the right girl baby. If your girl has hair as black as mine, small feet, and good manners, you might as well have all the gold in the world. See my father, he knew this was the only way to keep us from starving. So before our reputation could be tarnished, I was married to a man named Dou Jiaguo, and within a day my name went from Chou Ying-Gai, worry free, to Dou Ying-Gai, all worry.  
Dou Lin, the father of Jiaguo, was a meinlul who had made a fortune that the communists wouldn't touch. He and his family had broad, tanned faces, lots of muscles. You think this is handsome now, but back then it was a sign that he was a peasant, not a drop of Han blood in him. The rumours, and these, Cho, are just rumours, are that Dou Lin joined the communists, made a fortune trading with them, pledged his allegiance to Mao and then got both good sides. Lots of money, and safety for his family. You see how tricky he was? He was not a pleasant man. He burped, and had bad manners. And his son, Jiaguo, who I was to marry was just as bad.  
I tried not to think about this. I thought how happy my old father would be to have good food in his belly. How glad fourth wife will be for a new, warm dress all the way from Paris. How I could use Dou Jiaguo's money and buy my family a little home. And I might not be happy, but I could give such happiness to others. And that was enough to make me glad inside.  
We were married in a simple, stiff wedding. Not a traditional Chinese wedding with a red candle and fancy red dress. Not a western wedding, so popular ten years ago, with big silly white dresses. A quick, legal, communist wedding.  
I did not fear getting married, but I stiffened when Jiaguo approached our bed that night. I hadn't thought of this. I was still a very little girl, I was very scared. But Jiaguo only said, "Move over," in a rough voice, and went to bed almost at once. I was so glad--I was glad to hear his snores, glad to know that Jiaguo didn't like me.   
I was so glad, so happy to know that someone else, even a meinlul, shared my misery.  



	7. Blisters That Do Not Heal

It was not Jiaguo I was scared of. No he left me to myself. At dinner he would eat without a single complaint, and at night we would sleep in the same bed, like brother and sister, not even our ankles touching.  
No, Jiaguo I was almost glad of. It was Dou Yan, my mother in law who I feared beyond everything.  
My first day as a wife Dou Yan spit at me, saying "Your rice is too salty for my son. Bah--only a peasant would eat this!"  
She said this, but I saw many blisters on her hands, blisters that came from working hard in the fields, peasant work. Scars that would never go away. Maybe it was these scars that made her so mean. They made her remember her old life, when she was poor.  
Maybe when she was a girl she was always hungry. Maybe she was always blamed for things. Maybe her mother in law would kick her waying that her rice was too salty. Maybe, she too, had a sad marriage. People are not bitter on their own.  
These things left scars on her, scars she tried to cover with her new wealth, her new white gloves. Scars she kept trying to heal, but only became deeper and deeper with her cruelty and proudness.   
Looking back on it, maybe Dou Yan was good, and only strict. Maybe I saw her as a someone to blame all my problems on. That's the way it was back then. If you are miserable blame your problems on some other woman, but never a man. Because in China it was the women's job to carry the misery.  
Dou Yan made me scrub her hard wooden floors until my hands were raw and bled, and only then was I allowed to tend to my own wounds. She would hit me upside the head and call me a stupid girl, and later, when no grandson's came, sh ewould shake me saying that I had too much yang, saying that I wasn't worth her son.  
You see, I felt misery then, misery you've never felt. What do you think is misery? Doing bad on homework? Finding a tear in your robes? You are so lucky, Cho, you will never know the sadness I have. So now do you see why it hurts me, when you say that I do not care about you? Because I care so much for you. You are the only thing I have ever loved.  
You used to watch a meinlul cartoon, about that pretty girl who sings and animals run to her. You remember that? I was like that girl. She's the one that always cleaned, and got yelled at by her bad family. I was that girl.  
Only I didn't have a shoe made out of glass. I didn't have a prince to rescue me. I had to find my freedom on my own.   
And that is why I decided to run away.  



	8. Salvation?

I left early one morning to go to the market, as I always did in the morning to get fresh food for dinner. I left with only my wand and some coins in my pocket.   
I didn't come back.  
The only problem was, you see, I didn't know where to go. In China you couldn't go to a homeless shelter and say, "Eh, give me some food, and clothes and a bed for free." In China if you had nowhere to go, you were out of luck.  
I slept one night in the streets, one cold, wet night. With my little money I bought some water chestnuts when I got up. Oh, I was so hungry, I made those chestnuts last all morning.  
I could have gone to a communist place that helped women out of feudal marriages. But Dou's were too friendly with the communists, and my marriage wasn't really feudal. I was all alone.  
And then I heard a whisper from a corner, "Eh, little sister, are you lost?"  
It was a plump Chinese women with a broad face and large feet. She wore Chinese clothes but somehow she didn't look as if she belonged. She had a crooked X hanging on a chain around her neck.  
The woman pulled at me, and led me to a corner. "You in trouble with communists?"  
I didn't ask her how she knew. Looking back, long way from now, I think she could tell I wasn't working class. I had nice clothes from Dou's and a pretty voice, and very tiny feet. Maybe she could tell I was rich.  
"There's a place," the girl said. You picture her, anh, don't you like a mystery hero in a big movie. Whispering from the shadows, giving me safety. But I tell you, it was not like this. Not romantic at all--the girl smelled like sour meat, and had a very bad voice, very rough. "This place where westerners go, and they rescue you, they rescue anyone, as long as you do certain things. But it's very dangerous. It's on the edge of town, not fashionable but very clean. Follow me."  
And I did. You see now you say, "Wah, don't follow strangers, might get killed." But then, that mystery place was my only hope. I followed that girl through the streets, past the peddlars until I got to a very dark part of the city. The girl looked round very secretly and tapped on door one, two, three times.   
"The bread is ready," she said. And then the door opened.  
See how secret! Just like those spies you see in movies. There was a lady, very funny looking. She was foreign with brown hair; a very large woman, except for very tiny feet, maybe size 3 or 4.  
"Lucy," she said to the girl beside me. And then she started to speak in something I didn't understand. Later I found it was English.  
The next days, were blurry, not real. I remember being given new clothes, taking a bath, having something to eat.  
You see, this is how I learned my English, how I learned about Christ. And this is how I met Luling.  



	9. In the Dark

Yes, that girl, Lucy, she was Luling. That is how I met her, through the missionaries.  
  
You see the people Luling worked for, were foreigners sent to China to "save heathens." Very silly, before the communists all trying to make people forget Buddha or Confucius, remember Christ, God. When communists came...anh...poor westerners all kicked out killed. But not these missionaries. They hid, still trying to save the people who dismissed them, still working to make everyone love Christ. They said they would feed me, give me clothes, place to sleep, keep me safe, just as long as I said that I loved Jesus, as long as I said prayers. Wah, I said, why not?   
  
Some people, Luling said later, some people who come to missionaries starving, but still to scared, too proud to denounce their religion. Me, wah. I never liked Confucius always telling people to look down on others, women always, always at the bottom. And Buddha, was just a silly man, ate too much when he was alive. So plump!  
  
Me, I said, why not, give me a rosary! All right, I'll eat that bread, no matter if it's body of dead man. Yes, I'll say some foreign words before I go to bed, very good, please give me food now. They even changed my name, wah, yes, again. I needed a real name they said, not a Chinese name, just like you say. So they called me Mary. No last name, no middle name. Just Mary.  
  
I lived there for many months. There were three people running the place. Miss Grace was old and thin as wire. She had dark hair and teeny tiny eyes. Her daughter was enormous, bigger than statues of Buddha you see. She was not a young daughter, Miss Katharine; she was old like her mother, very tiny feet, the one that I saw at the door. It was these ladies that taught me my English, they taught me their western manners, and the ways to pray to their god.  
  
It was like a school there; all us Chinese women in a big house, eating, learning, praying, being taught by these two funny women. On the other side of the house were the men, but not so many of them, maybe only four or five, and they were taught by Mister Harold, a young man, nice, glasses. Maybe you would say he was smart looking.  
  
Me and Luling shared a room. We would talk at night like little girls, sometimes argue over little things. Wah, she let off such a stink sometimes, never washed right, I think. But we were happy, well fed, always off looking for more people who needed to be converted so they wouldn't go to hell.  
  
"You're so pretty," Lucy said to me one night, as we were tucked in our beds.  
  
I was raised the Chinese way, always modest, always praising some one else. "But you have such nice hair, so dark," I said back.  
  
"Wah, I'm ugly," Lucy said. She was not being modest like me. She was being truthful. "Raised up by the Gobi desert; always hungry, always working in fields. You see blisters on my feet?"  
  
I was quiet.  
  
"Sometimes we couldn't eat," Lucy went on in a strangled voice. "Some--sometimes we had to beg our neighbors."  
  
I had never heard this story before.   
  
"So you see, that's why I found the missionaries," Lucy was speaking lightly, hiding her feelings, "And now look at me, I eat good food, I do good work, and I have best of friend." She smiled at me through the darkness.  
  
There've been times I was so annoyed with Lucy, so, so, angry. But then, right then in the darkness, I saw her real self, the part of Luling that I liked best.  
  



	10. Close to My Heart

You see how my life was? Pray, wash, pray, eat, pray, find people, pray, eat, pray, pray, pray. I made myself think I was safe with Lucy and Miss Katherine, and Miss Grace, and Mister Harold. Two years like this.  
  
I tried to stop feeling, I tried to work, and for a while I thought I did. But then I found myself feeling things I never felt before.  
  
I was very young then, just turned seventeen, and still beautiful. I am not making myself sound nice, I really was--blackest of black hair, very nice. I was still a witch, sometimes funny things would happen. But women in China weren't allowed wands--what could I do? I knew nothing about this, what you say, potions. I had the magic, but no way to let it out. But, you understand, I didn't mind. I was raised to not care. I could hardly tell the difference between magic and not magic, so why did it matter?  
  
Maybe it was all the magic all inside me. Maybe it was an ordinary sort of magic, nature magic. Maybe it was fate. But soon I started to see Mister Harold in a new way.  
  
Just how he ate, very neatly, polite even to his food. The way his hair fell to his eyes, the way he smiled--wah, but you don't want to hear about this, all this, what you say, mushy love talk. Only nice to hear in movies, not about your old mother.  
  
You see, I hoped every day that Mister Harold would say, "Mary I love you!" Never happened just that way, but very close.  
  
See, he had too many manners, too shy, which made me love him more. I tried to smile at him but how could I? I didn't know how to, what you call, flirt. Flirting, what was that? Chinese girls didn't flirt, imagine the shame. See how innocent I was?  
  
Maybe it was the idea of a foreigner all of my own--he was Chinese, but lived in Britain all his life, just like you, see. Spoke perfect English, Cantonese too, and so in my broken English and our Cantonese we could talk.  
  
He liked to talk, about just everything. Books he read, people he saw, even what he called politics which just sounded like a bunch of stupid silly men. Harold was a meinlul, of course, but there was something about him, something that was so...I don't know...magic?  
  
And then, one day, right after Chinese New Year, he kissed me. You see, finally I knew that he loved me, and I could tell him that I loved him too. That spring I had Lucy sign divorce papers for me, and I married Harold.  



	11. Free Hope

We were only married two weeks, for two weeks I was Mary Smith, a normal, happy young girl. For two weeks I was so glad, so happy.  
  
I sometimes wonder, what if I hadn't found that man on the streets? What if we were never caught? But then I have to stop myself from wondering or else I'll lose myself in a whole ocean of what-ifs. So I don't think about that. But sometimes at night, when the moon is full I have to think, I have to give in and wonder, what if.  
  
That day me and Lucy went, looking for more people to bring. Then we saw a man; very nice clothes, clean but poor looking. Obviously a man we could make a Christian. We went up to him, and said ,"Come with us." And he did. We brought him to the house. And then two days later the communists came.  
  
Oh, what a bad man he was! Gone and told communists so he could get a little bit of money. We were all sleeping and then BOOM--ten, twenty men, come in, with knives and guns and--oh god.  
  
It is hard to talk about. I do not remember much. I do remember Lucy, pulling on my hand saying, "Mary, Mary, we must go!" I looked at Harold. "Go, go!" he said. "Here!" It was a beautiful necklace with cho beads on it. "You are like those beads. Beautiful and priceless, but many layers. Keep on to this." And then Lucy was pulling me, and we leapt out the window and the next day we were on the streets.  
  
I found out later those communists, they killed everyone. Everyone. They killed Harold. I was alone, with just Lucy. We were so scared, didn't know what to do. And then Lucy said, "Eh, you were married to a Britsh man. Why don't you see if we can move to Britain?"  
  
So that's what we did. I don't know how we got tickets out. But in a month me and Lucy were on a ship. When we came to the important British people asking silly questions about forms they asked for my name.  
  
I had given this thought on the ship. I had had a lot of names, but now, I did not want to keep Mary. I would be Cho Chang. You know what that is? Yes, can mean coral necklace, but it has more meanings deep down. Free hope. That is what I wanted, that is what I told the British officials. And I made my name, Cho, come first, always put myself first, not my father or mother in law. Because then I knew I had a child and I wanted to give that child all of my best intentions. You know what Cho-Ah? That child, that was you.  
  
You see I had you, and I tried so hard to be British. Lucy, she change her name to Luling so she can be like me, she didn't like Britain, after few years she say, "Wah, why stay here? I going to America." And she did. And now she lives in perfect house with perfect daughter. But I am happier because I have you, my free hope.  
  
I got a wand even. England was so funny to me, everything magic or not. I have idea, why it's not so important in China. In China even meinlul's are magical, in China there is something in the air, in the sea, in our deepest hopes that breathes magic. You don't understand but someday you will. You will go to China and see a Chinese sky and stand on Chinese land and feel the magic run through you. You will throw your head back and laugh because you will be full of free hope.  
  



End file.
